Technology Life

Synthetic biology attempts to generate biomolecules with new and/or improved activities for use as, say, drugs or fuel. One way of producing new biomolecules involves directed evolution, in which specific functions are selected for, but that has been slow and labor intensive. A faster m...

Synthetic biology attempts to generate biomolecules with new and/or improved activities for use as, say, drugs or fuel. One way of producing new biomolecules involves directed evolution, in which specific functions are selected for, but that has been slow and labor intensive. A faster m...

Subsurface oceans may be a common features of the moons of our solar system’s gas giants. Evidence has piled up that there’s one on Titan, and data from Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede that indicate they too may have a watery layer underneath their crusts. Today...

Subsurface oceans may be a common features of the moons of our solar system’s gas giants. Evidence has piled up that there’s one on Titan, and data from Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede that indicate they too may have a watery layer underneath their crusts. Today...

The fungus kingdom contains diverse eukaryotic organisms, including the yeast that we add in fermentation to make beer, the mold that grows on old bread, and the mushrooms that we eat. While we are familiar with many types of fungi, scientists are still trying to fill out the fungal tre...

The fungus kingdom contains diverse eukaryotic organisms, including the yeast that we add in fermentation to make beer, the mold that grows on old bread, and the mushrooms that we eat. While we are familiar with many types of fungi, scientists are still trying to fill out the fungal tre...

Barn owls have a pretty tough job: in near-darkness, they need to catch at least two little critters a day to feed themselves, and about 20 a day if they have offspring. Since the stakes are so high, the selective pressure acting on these birds’ vision is quite intense. Last we...

Barn owls have a pretty tough job: in near-darkness, they need to catch at least two little critters a day to feed themselves, and about 20 a day if they have offspring. Since the stakes are so high, the selective pressure acting on these birds’ vision is quite intense. Last we...

As most forms of energy in the US have been going up in price, natural gas has gone in the opposite direction. This is largely the result of a new extraction technique called “fracking,” in which fluids under high pressure are used to fracture rock formations deep undergro...

As most forms of energy in the US have been going up in price, natural gas has gone in the opposite direction. This is largely the result of a new extraction technique called “fracking,” in which fluids under high pressure are used to fracture rock formations deep undergro...